


only good for bad behaviour

by foreignconstellations



Category: Nowhere Boys (TV)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 15:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2817206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreignconstellations/pseuds/foreignconstellations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer means days spent hiding, from the sun and the heat, from his parents and the idiots at school and sometimes even Ellen. Summer means nights with air so thick he feels like he’s suffocating, means lying awake for hours counting every one of his mistakes.</p>
<p>A pre-series Felix Ferne character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only good for bad behaviour

**Author's Note:**

> please heed the warnings: this fic contains mentions of/references to self harm (skin picking, references to cutting), disordered eating, gender dysphoria, and general self-hatred/self-destructive behaviour

It’s the kind of hot that makes everything seem hazy and slow, that makes you feel like you’re underneath a thick, heavy blanket. It’s the kind of hot that’s everywhere, creeps throw windows and under clothes so there’s nowhere left that’s still dark and cool. It’s the kind of hot where you’re meant to where bright colours and thin fabrics, where you fight off the heat with friends and trips to the river and quickly-melting ice cream. It’s summer in Bremin, and Felix hates it.

When he was a kid, summer meant long days in the river, and lazy afternoons in the cool of his dad’s shop, and fingers sugar-sticky from an endless stream of frozen treats. Then he got a bit older, and didn’t like to swim so much, and the heat left him agitated and sweltering in his binder, but Jake and Ellen never minded too much, forgoing the river to find somewhere shady but dry to spend their time. Sometimes they went down to the river anyway, and he dipped his feet in the water and watched them swim, and tried not to stare too much (out of envy and something else he refused to think about) when Jake pulled his shirt off readily.

And then Oscar had his accident, and Jake left, and now summer means keeping his curtains shut at all times to block out the light and heat, and wearing black no matter how high the temperature gets. Summer means watching Oscar watching everyone else, kids running and playing in the street, or walking past their house loaded up with towels, obviously on their way to the river. Summer means days spent hiding, from the sun and the heat, from his parents and the idiots at school and sometimes even Ellen. Summer means nights with air so thick he feels like he’s suffocating, means lying awake for hours counting every one of his mistakes.

The hot weather seems to throw all the effects of Oscar’s accident into sharp relief. It’s not that he thinks Oscar’s broken, or anything like that – he’d punch anyone that even thought otherwise. But it’s an undeniable fact that there are things Oscar can’t do now, will never be able to do again, and it’s Felix’s fault. And he knows Oscar misses it, even though he’d never say so. His parents know it too, but his mum’s too loud about it and his dad’s too quiet, and sometimes Oscar sends Felix looks like he’s suffocating. Felix tries his best, puts on smiles that look easy even when it’s hard, doesn’t patronise or smother or stand too far away, but most of them time he just ends up under his parents feet and has to move fast before they kick him away (they don’t look at him, but they don’t have to for him to know he’s a burden, a screw-up, a _danger_ ). He retreats into his room when he can, draws the curtains and shuts off the lights and plays music as loud as he dares.

He can’t remember ever being comfortable inside his own skin, but the heat and humidity only make everything worse. He waits too long between showers, which just makes him hotter and stickier and more irritable, but boys aren’t meant to care about hygiene that much anyway, and the sight of himself without clothes isn’t something he likes to dwell on. Ellen never says anything about it, because she’s perfect and he doesn’t deserve her. When he does finally bring himself to shower, he washes quickly and clinically and looks straight ahead.

The days are bad, but they are at least busy, keeping Oscar occupied and staying out of his parents way and seeing Ellen every other moment. The nights are the worst, when the heat and humidity reach a boiling point and all he wants is to sleep, but he’s too uncomfortable and so has nothing to do but listen to the thoughts running around his head that he can’t even drown out with music anymore. They’re so _loud_ , and combined with the heat they make him toss and turn until he just wants to draw back his teeth and snarl, wants to howl in frustration and pain like a wild animal. He scratches at his arms, his legs, his face, and wishes he had claws so he could rip himself apart. In those moments, the worst moments, he wants to make himself _hurt_. He knows what the kids at school whisper about him, rumour and assumption based on all the shitty stereotypes they’ve consumed. But now the weather is hotter and he can wear short sleeves, flaunt the smooth, pale skin of his arms and never, ever tell anyone how close the rumours are to being true.

(He finds other ways, though. He skips meals, excusing it with not enough money or time or strength to ignore the way his parents refuse to look at him. He wears his binder longer than he should, until his chest aches when he breathes and keeps aching even after he takes it off. He snaps back at Jake and his cronies, when Ellen’s not around to drag him away when he’s in danger of pushing his luck too far, and waits for them to shove him or hit him or _something_. On the rare occasion they break the skin enough for it to scab over, he picks at it until it bleeds, keeps at it until it scars.)

He thinks about running away, sometimes. He wonders if anyone would even notice. He doesn’t even know where he would go, how he would get there – Bremin’s in the middle of fucking nowhere, and sometimes it feels like he’s the only one who realises, everyone else in town content to go on living their own little lives, spinning in smaller and smaller circles till they die. He used to like the tree because he could see beyond Bremin, just a little, and it reminded him that there was life out there, he just had to get there. He can’t help but think, sometimes, that Oscar’s accident was a kind of omen, the universe telling him there’s no way out.

If he left, he knows Ellen would come with him (maybe. He knows she’d kill him if he didn’t ask). They go to the movies every week and see everything on offer, even the ones that are absolutely terrible, sitting in the back of the theatre that’s empty more often than not, and commentate on every minute. She paints his nails for him, even though he’s more than capable of doing it himself, and never complains about all the time she spends going over it when he inevitably chips them a day or two later. They take turns buying each other lemon chicken and she makes him laugh and sometimes he’s okay with that.  And sometimes he’s not, and it’s hard and it _hurts_ because he knows she worries about him, but he can’t tell her how to help him when he doesn’t know himself, and he can’t tell her about the worse things, because- because he _can’t_.  He loves Ellen more than anyone except his brother, thinks she’s beautiful and resplendent and other things he doesn’t have enough words for, but he doesn’t want _more_ like he’s supposed to, like boys are meant to want girls. There are moments where that makes him doubt himself and his convictions, moments where he thinks about that and how he wears nail polish and likes to straighten his hair and other things boys aren’t meant to like (they aren’t meant to like other boys either, and yet). There are moments when he wonders if it would be easier – on his parents, on Oscar, on himself – if he’d left things as they were. He’s tired a lot, but it doesn’t make it easier to sleep.

Despite how unhelpful (and incredibly creepy) Phoebe is, he finds his way into magic; the internet is actually surprisingly helpful. Magic is something that makes him feel – not happy, because that’s not who he is anymore, but something. Focused, and not always just because of his end goal of helping Oscar – it’s interesting, learning legends and symbols and meanings. He copies down everything, sketches sigils and lights candles and never stops wishing (because intent is the most important thing), until he’s built himself a proper Book of Shadows without really meaning to. It’s an unorganised mess, but it works for him – he knows where everything is because he spends hours flipping through it. He may not have an official blessing or statement of intent written anywhere but his dedication to Oscar is scrawled out on every page, sometimes strong and sometimes shaky and sometimes it all feels hopeless and fake like everything else in his life but he keeps going because he has to try (if he looked at it objectively, he might call it brave, but all he can think is he still isn’t doing _enough_ ). He doesn’t really get into Wicca, but he thinks a lot about the Threefold Law. It was one of the first concepts he’d come across when he’d started looking into magic – that whatever you put out into the world shall be returned to you threefold. Even after months passed, and the hours of digging through the internet and hanging around Arcane Lane started to yield real information, when he’s actually started to write his own spells, it was still an idea that stuck with him, made sense. It was confirmation that the universe really was stacked against him, that he really did deserve everything he got. It was confirmation that he had ruined his own life, and the lives of everyone around him. He lies awake at night and counts off all the times his actions have brought pain and suffering, and he knows he’s nowhere near finished paying for it.


End file.
